Remember the arrogance of that Obama turnaround on FISA? Well, the answer is, under the current Daily Kos construction, we have no where else to turn. What else can we do? “Where else can you dirty fucking internet beatnik hippies go? Just give me some more money and shut the fuck up,” Obama might as well have said. He’ll probably say something like that a lot during the next four years. Obama will probably do things that any sensible person would never equate with real “change”.
Here are the Markos rules as far as I can figure them out: We support the democrats no matter what they do. We don’t support Republicans, which I think is smart because they’re an evil party (there shouldn’t be a party that represents private interests against the greater good at every fucking turn)but we also don’t support third party candidates who would better represent us. Further, we won’t expend any energy into building viable third party candidates and/or well funded well organized third party runs. Now, to me, those last two facts, the reality that we don’t support third party candidates or will work to build a viable third party infrastructure, doom us to irrelevance. This is why we lose. I might stress that this is also why we will continue to lose. They simply don’t fear us. Finally, this Markos construction is a boon to the Republicans. I can very easily see a scenario where the republicans stop all meaningful reform/stimulus over the next two years, declare all dem efforts “fails” and make big gains in 2010.
Three: What is a viable third party run?You don’t need a 50 state plan, at least initially, to prove our point to the democrats. You really need to focus on what I’ve been calling my 5/25 plan. You need to fund 25 house races and 5 senate races. You need at least 1 million dollars to compete for a house seat and at least 2 million to compete, realistically and viably for a senate seat. Now, this is where the expertise of the Kos community could come in handy. What 25 house seats would you pick to make your point? I frankly think they should run “Lieberman” style. Run them in the primary first and even if they lose run them in the general. We already have two senate opportunities in Delaware and Illinois for 2010. Tom Morello has openly talked about dipping his toe into the political waters in Illinois. I actually wouldn’t mind Ralph Nader as a Delaware senator because I think he would use the fillibuster. The truth of the matter is that five senators that use the old fashioned Jimmy Stewart fillibuster could change congress. Just once, I’d like to see a senator as supportive of child healthcare as they are for wall street bailouts. I’d love to see a senator talk about that over a several day fillibuster as well. (You would need a stubborn asshole to do that…Nader looks right to me…)
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R.U. Sirius has setup a site for a new project: the Open Source Political Party. It appears to be a relaunching of his old Revolution Party idea, but more… serious.
The Revolution Party was a huge influence on me. I’ve always had a sort of mix of libertarian and progressive ideals, and the Revolution Party platform was the first I saw that tried to reconcile both modes of thinking.
In college, I tried to start a Washington State Revolution Party. We had a couple meetings, but the interest just wasn’t there. I went on to spend some time working with the local Democratic Party and doing community work, and after the crushing defeat of the Dems in 2002, decided that the voting public was still pretty far from supporting progressive or libertarian policies.
It wasn’t long after that “Dean-mania” hit and suddenly the “netroots” was born. 2004 came and went, but people were looking to the successes of Democrats in the “libertarian” mountain-west (such as Brian Schweitzer in Montana and Dave Freudenthal in Wyoming) as the model for the future of the Democrats. Looking back it was an exciting time. Reid seemed to be whipping the remaining Dems into some sort of a cohesive opposition party, and Howard Dean become the DNC chairman, pushing “50 State Strategy.” In 2005 I started Rose Colored News, partially to track the successes of this “new progressivism.” The crowning achievement of the netroots movement came in 2006, with the Democrats taking back both the Senate and the House and of course wins by Jim Webb and Jon Tester.
But this year has been a big disappointment. Back in charge, the Dems seem to have accomplished precious little and have taken to playing it safe now that they’re in charge (Reid has been particularly infuriating). The netroots hasn’t really found a candidate in the Democratic presidential race, instead splintering support amongst pretty much everyone running. Meanwhile, Ron Paul has become the Republican Howard Dean, preventing a sort of libertarian/progressive coalition from forming around any Democratic presidential candidate (Richardson and Gravel seem like particularly choice candidates for something like this).
I guess maybe it’s because it’s more fun to root for the underdog that I’ve found myself drifting back over to the thought of 3rd parties, so I guess the timing of R.U.’s new party is apt. But I can’t really get that excited about the prospect of starting a whole new party from the ground up. Lately I’ve been more interested in stuff like Kevin Zeese’s run for senate in Maryland on a Libertarian-Green-Populist fusion ticket, and the libertarian Freedom Democrats.
I’ve actually been working on an Extreme Democracy inspired “open political platform” myself. The basic idea is not a platform for a party, but a collection of policies and solutions that can be modified and used by candidates running for different offices on different party tickets. So I’m sure I’ll participating in the Open Source Party, at least in the platform discussions. Maybe this will finally motivate me to get my stuff into some sort of presentable form.
Tania Derveaux, leading candidate for senate of the NEE party in Belgium goes completely naked for the party’s campaign and for Belgium’s most popular men’s magazine. Their official campaign involves billboards featuring her in all her naked glory with a very seductive look and the text “I promise you 400.000 jobs” above her.” This was submitted to WTFsrsly this morning along with these photos.
Full Story: WTFsrsly (may not be SFW).
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